a book about the search for the best way to live

UH West O‘ahu Professor of Political Science Dr. Louis G. Herman recently published Future Primal: How our Wilderness Origins Show us the Way Forward, a stunning book that responds to the multiple crises of globalized humanity by recovering the classical project of political philosophy—the truth quest—as “the search for the best way to live.” The story of the philosopher’s personal search becomes an entry into “big history:” the epic narrative of contemporary cosmology, of the emergence of creative, self-reflective humanity from a southern African wilderness, on an evolving planet within an evolving universe.

Dr. Louis G. Herman is professor of political science at the University of Hawai‘i – West O‘ahu. Born in an orthodox Jewish community in apartheid South Africa, Herman’s earliest memories were of “wilderness rapture”— intoxication with the rugged beauty of the South African bushveld and beach. At age twelve his family moved to England, where he went on to study at Cambridge University, receiving degrees in medical sciences and the history and philosophy of science. Disillusioned with academia he gave up a medical career, sought out his “tribal” roots, moved to an Israeli kibbutz and volunteered for military service in a combat infantry unit. His wartime experience confronted him with two hard realities. One was the long ignored, obvious fact that Arabs were also indigenous to the land; the other was the absurdity of war as a long term solution to political conflict. He felt compelled to go back to the beginning of politics, to ask the Socratic question: How should we best live?

After studying political philosophy at the Hebrew University and completing his PhD at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, he found the two tracks of his search, the personal and the political, led him back to southern Africa, the birthplace of modern humanity. Connections became revelations, converging increasingly with the wisdom of the oldest culture on earth, the San Bushmen. Future Primal represents the culmination of this search.

For the past twenty years at UH West O‘ahu, Herman has developed a political science curriculum and pedagogy based on the principles of the primal truth quest. Future Primal is also the scholarly foundation for an in-development feature film.

UH West O‘ahu became a four-year, regional comprehensive university when it served its first class of freshmen in fall 2007. The University offers quality education, small classes and personalized attention at convenient locations. UH West O‘ahu serves approximately 2,400 students at its brand new, state-of-the-art campus that opened in the City of Kapolei in 2012. For more information, visit uhwo.hawaii.edu, twitter.com/uhwestoahu, facebook.com/uhwestoahu or call (808) 689-2800 or toll-free (866) 299-8656.